Vogel State Park

Or... flight from Austin - Atlanta: 2 hours, then hour and a half drive to Vogel State Park

Where am I? In the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia

Site we stayed at: Tent camping, site "H". Sites are walk in, and H is tucked away, but straight up hill

What to do: Hiking (access to the Appalachian Trail)

Our first time camping in Georgia! We didn't let the slightly rainy weekend keep us from trying out a new state park and exploring part of the Appalachian Trail.

One of the biggest differences for Vogel State Park: you can now reserve a specific site number. Pretty cool. We headed to Atlanta to visit our pals Jonathan and Angela, and made the easy hour and a half drive up to Vogel State Park. Jonathan made us the site reservation, which turned out not to be completely necessary since we essentially had the entire tent camping area to ourselves. The park is big, clean, and very pretty. Tucked into the trees, there are about 80 sites available for tents and RV's, and 34 cottages you can reserve.

In addition to the many site options, there is also 17 miles of beautiful hiking trails. And REAL hiking! Like... up mountains! We were definitely looking forward to this change of pace from the Texas prairie walks we'e gotten used to. The rain completely cleared on Sunday, giving us the perfect day to do our 8 mile hike from the state park up to Blood Mountain, where we got to hike part of the Appalachian Trail as well! It was a beautiful hike through the trees, rivers, and waterfalls, with an awesome view of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the top.